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Inference requests use an API key created in the console. Your Clerk browser session signs you into the console; it is not an inference API credential.

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Create a key

  1. Sign in and verify your primary email address.
  2. Open API keys and choose Create API key.
  3. Give it a useful name, such as local-development or production-server.
  4. Copy the full key while it is displayed. Later visits show only a masked value.
Keys start with glmk_. The current limit is five active keys per account. Revoke an unused key before creating another when you reach that limit.

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Send the key

The API accepts either of these headers:
Use one header. If you send both, their values must match. The OpenAI SDK sends the Bearer header; the Anthropic SDK sends x-api-key.
Read this variable from your server process or development tool. Do not put a key in a URL, public website code, or a committed configuration file.

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Account access and credit

An API key must belong to an active account with a verified email. New verified console accounts receive a one-time $5 starting credit when their billing account is first provisioned. This grant is per new account, does not refill after use, and does not retroactively top up existing accounts. Keys on the same account share its balance. Creating or replacing a key does not create a new balance. If credit is still activating, the API can return 503 with credit_pending. If there is insufficient available credit for a request, it returns 402. View your balance and request additional credit in the console.

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Rotate or revoke a key

Create a replacement, update the applications that use it, then revoke the old key in the console. A revoked key cannot authenticate new requests. If you lose a key, replace it; the console cannot reveal an existing key again. If a key was exposed, revoke it promptly. Never use a Clerk secret key or an administrator credential as an inference key.

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Check authentication failures

See the error reference for retry behavior and streaming errors.